Charter school reform appears to be anything but

THECAMPAIGN for unfettered expansion of charter schools in Pennsylvania has greatly intensified given a bill pending in the state Senate that would give life to a large number of deeply ill-advised proposals.

Senate Bill 1085 is being sold as a comprehensive reform of Pennsylvania’s charter schools, and it truly puts forward a number of game-changers. Whether they amount to reforms, however, largely depends on how one feels about drastically undermining the state’s public school system and placing an even greater burden on taxpayers.

Charter schools are privately operated, much like private academies and parochial schools. But the latter largely get their money from student tuition. Charter schools, on the other hand, are heavily subsidized by public tax money from tuition paid by public school districts for each student who leaves a district to attend a charter school.

That tuition paid by school districts also fully funds the pensions of charter school employees. But, for some reason, the state also directly funds a minimum of 50 percent of charter school pensions costs. This is known as the so-called pension “double-dip.”

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SB 1085 represents the Senate version of House-passed legislation, the latest in a long-running effort to address some of these inequities. But opponents say the bill would do little ease the burden on taxpayers, while greatly expanding the state’s charter school system.

Highlights include:

•Removal of pension double-dip by dropping the state’s 50-percent pension funding, a $65 million windfall for the state’s general fund. This does nothing to ease the burden on public schools, which would continue to fund charter school pensions with local property taxes.

• Removal of a mandate that charter schools serve as models of innovation for public schools, potentially allowing them to operate much the way public schools already do.

• Removal of any caps on charter school enrollment, enabling a potential exodus of students from public schools without a reduction in the financial burden they would otherwise enjoy.

• Formation of a funding advisory commission without requiring investigation of the actual costs of educating a charter school child.

• A requirement that public school districts bear the burden of proving enrollment errors.

• Fuzzy language that appears to require school district tuition payments to charter schools with pre-K and full-day kindergarten, even if the funding school district does not offer these services.

THISLEGISLATION represents a giant leap toward the creation of a parallel, costly and largely redundant public school system in Pennsylvania, squarely on the backs of taxpayers struggling mightily to support the one we already have.

The way to address dissatisfaction with public schools — to the extent that it exists beyond profit-mongers and malcontents — is to improve the system we already have instead of making taxpayers subsidize a second system of private schools.